Tips for Garage Door Maintenance

Most people tend to make light of garage door maintenance. The fact remains that garage door springs are a critical component of the garage door which offset its weight. These springs facilitate easy opening and closing of the garage door.

The springs contain high-tension steel which has a restricted lifespan. As time passes by, these springs cease to be effective. Garage door springs vary in levels of quality. For example, they may be classified as either 10,000-use or 20,000 use springs. These number appear very large on the onset. However, when you consider that your garage is to be opened multiple times a day for several years to come, you come to realize that these critical garage door parts also have a limited lifespan.

It is inevitable for people to go for garage door torsion spring replacementin Mchenry IL. Let’s just try and understand the garage door springs and how to deal with them.

Different Types Of Garage Door Springs

In most residential areas, garage doors have either one or two types of these springs: torsion or extension.

Torsion Spring

These are heavy springs which are placed on a metal rod running parallel to the door located right above the door opening. A twisting action is what these doors are loaded with. There are pulleys attached to the ends of the metal rod that are pulled by the cables attached to the bottom upon the closing of the door. This rod is turned by the pulleys twisting the springs and creating tension. Upon the opening of the door, unwinding springs helps lift the door open.

Extension Spring

These are long and lighter weighted springs which may run perpendicular to the door. These springs are placed right above the door tracks’ horizontal portions.  Just as with the torsion system, you can stretch out its cables and pulleys to tension an extension door. The extension springs requires a safety cable that runs through each spring because these are only suspended between two brackets. In case of a breakage, the safety cable will help contain the spring. If there is no safety cable, a spring break may cause a very serious safety hazard.

What Are The Symptoms Of Falling Springs?

How does one determine that the springs are falling? There are certain signs and symptoms that appear when the door has falling springs. With the growing age, the garage door springs increase the weight of the door as their steel’s resilience dwindles.

When new springs are in place, even the heaviest garage door wouldn’t take more than 10 pounds to be lifted into an open position. However with declining lifespan, far greater force is needed to open the door as the garage door is likely to weigh 200 pounds or even more!

A garage door with old spring is likely to put huge load on the garage door opener. This means that you can identify falling springs from the straining sound coming from the electric door opener as it struggles to lift the door. This is the point where you may want to consider replacing the springs.

When the door shuts with a violent slam, it means that the aging springs have broken. If it happens in your presence, then you should hear a very loud sound like a gunshot as the break occurs when the spring is loaded.

You should know that your garage door springs cannot be repaired. The maintenance will require a full replacement both springs at the same time.

Be Vigilant For A Safety Alert

If you are using a garage door opener and there’s a suspicion that one of the springs has broken, it is advised that you don’t disconnect the opener from the door. If you do that, there’s a serious risk of door falling down crashing with its full weight. There’ll be nothing to stop it then. Such a situation could be incredibly dangerous for your property as well as you. Make sure you are not leaving the door open while a spring is broken because it may cause anyone to suffer injuries as they unconsciously try to close it.

In order to prevent an unpleasant situation, you may want to block the door track from both sides so that movement of the door is contained. However, when you are in the mood to close the door, you must do it after ensuring that the door’s path is empty so that no body is harmed in case anything goes wrong.

You can also get some strong helpers to hold the doors as you cut the connection between the door and opener and then manually shut the door with care. As you do it, remember that the door will be fairly heavy to lift.

Should You Really Try DIY Or Not?

In the world of home improvement services, the most advised recommendation concerning garage door spring repair is that one must leave this job to the pros. Not only is this a truly sound advice it is also not that difficult as claimed by most sources. As a matter of fact, a handy homeowner with enough competence and tool set can manage to replace both types of garage door springs.

However, it is critical that the person doing the job has at least basic understanding of the mechanism of the door springs. No matter how good of a DIY one can do, a professional garage door repairservice is still unparalleled in terms of advantages and benefits it offers.

Even though the process to do is fairly simple yet this consists of many steps that have to be taken in the right order. Only professionals have the capability to be this accurate. No less critical for you is getting the proper size replacement spring. So, if you are convinced that you can do it, you can learn further by looking at certain online tutorials and learn how professionals handle the job. With the help of these videos, you can learn the right way of measuring the old spring and then get the right size replacement spring.

Unlike individuals, professional experts can comfortably replace or fix the garage door in an hour or two. At the time you are employing pros, don’t forget to ask them about the quality of the springs they’ll install.

At the last, you can also try evaluating your garage door opener as it has been under strain for quite some time. This may have made it more worn and less effective.

Author Bio: Tom Dexter is a proud owner of a garage door installation and maintenance company. With years of working experience, he has trained his workers in such a way that they always do the job where quality of work has never been compromised. He knows that no one wants a bad looking and working garage door, which is why he keep himself updates by latest tools and techniques. He shares his effective knowledge very frequently through writing blogs.